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Non-Review Review: What Lies Beneath?

What we’ve got here is a solid, old-fashioned ghost story with more restraint and grace than any number of Hollywood shockers. A slow, moody and intense look at the collapsing marital relationship between Claire and Norman Spencer after their daughter goes to college, it takes its time getting were it’s going, but manages to seem a classy flick.

I was also shivering a bit after watching the movie...

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Non-Review Review: Toys

What an odd film. It’s bright and colourful and simplistic and airs on Sky Family and full of Robin Williams flailing around in a way that is sure to impress small children. On the other hand, it features a lot of curse words, some rather disturbing violence and fairly explicit sexual references (including a father-son-nurse romantic triangle, escalated by a pity shag). It’s arguably too plain and niave to draw in an adult audience (with Barry Levinson of all people pioneering the MTV school of film-making for audiences with ADHD) and yet too adult and sophisticated for children.  Who is going to want to play with these toys?

Oh, ball(s)...

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Grant Morrison’s Run on Justice League of America: The Deluxe Edition, Vol. 1-2 (Review/Retrospective)

“Never underestimate the sentimentality of a Scotsman, Clark.”

– Batman knows how much Morrison likes comics

‘Tis the season for ever-so-slightly oversized hardback editions, what with DC reissuing the entire run of Starman and this re-release of the relaunch of the original superteam. The fact that they can put creator extraordinaire Grant Morrison’s name on the cover surely isn’t a problem either. Nor is the fact that the book (under his stewardship) was one of the best selling comic books of the nineties. So, what aren’t I getting here? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly adequate book (that isn’t necessarily as smart as it thinks it is), but it’s not gold. It moves at the speed of the Flash and seems intent to throw ideas at the reader at headache-inducing speed. It’s solid, reliable and it manages to recreate the zany madness that defined the group, but it never seems to completely transcend it. And it just keeps trying.

Rocking your world...

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Battlestar Galactica: Season 2

This isn’t about Sharon. It’s about something much bigger than that. It’s about the long term survival of the Fleet. It’s about the way we conduct ourselves in all of this.

Laura Roslin, Sacrifice

You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done.

– Commander Bill Adama, Miniseries

This year, mankind is its own worst enemy. The remnants of humanity are driven to the bring of civil war not once, but twice. The series lands in its sophmore season running, though it seems to run into a bit of bother balancing itself over a full year. That isn’t to say that it isn’t still spectacular television – far from it – but that there are moments here when the series appears to lose focus (if only for an episode or two at a time). Still, it remains one of the most interesting and dynamic television dramas ever conceived.

bsgstorm

It's some kinda storm out there...

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Tiring of Retiring Stars?

Hmm… A little part of me is so surprised that everybody is taking this whole ‘retirement’ thing with Robert Downey Jnr. so seriously. Yes, he talked about quitting while he’s ahead – an act that many former stars would have done well to consider – and seems to long for a bit of quite time:

I’ve never had it this good — this is my day in the sun — and I certainly don’t want to look a gift horse in the molars. But [my wife] Susan and I want to begin to be in our lives as much as we are in our jobs. I’d love just to sit here and say, ‘What movie’s playing tonight?’ I’d love to finish the new book about D-day I’m reading. I love painting, I love music.

I’m far too cynical to be driven to a state of panic about the loss of one of the finest talents to re-emerge over the past two or three years. Experience has taught us that there’s quite a distance between ‘retiring’ and ‘retired’ in Hollywood.

No need to feel down about Downey...

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HMS Pinafore at the National Concert Hall

Myself and the better half had a very… theatrical evening last night. First we stopped by Trinity to check out the up-and-coming talent during their “directors’ debut” season (running for the next three weeks, if you feel like taking a chance with your theatre-going) and then we went on to catch a performance of the HMS Pinafore playing at the National Concert Hall from the Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society (the people behind The Producers at the The Gaiety earlier this year). It’s rare that we get a Gilbert & Sullivan musical performed in full, so was it worth it?

Yes, this is the only photo we have...

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The Batman/Superman Dilemma

It began simply enough. “You like Batman better than Superman,” my girlfriend asserted over dinner a few weeks ago. I couldn’t dipute the claim, but mounted a fairly swift defense of the character as “misunderstood”. That prompted an incredulous response which suggested that I “like Batman better because he’s darker”. That’s an interesting assertion. I don’t believe it’s true – certainly not in my case at any rate. I think the public’s perception of Batman as a more enduring, more fascinating and all round ‘cooler’ pop culture icon that the Man of Steel stems from a whole host of factors, that can’t be succinctly summed up with an observation that one is dark and gritty and the other is light and fluffy. So, why are we fonder of the Caped Crusader that the big blue boy scout?

batsupe

Notice how Superman is trying to look half as badass as Batman...

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Jack and Tony: Brothers in Arms?

I had the pleasure of rewatching bits and pieces of the seventh season of 24 with my parents (as they are equally avid fans of the show). We recently completed the final double episode and I have to admit that it only really occurred to me how well the writers had constructed Tony as a shadowy counterpart to their lead. I’ve already expressed my thoughts on the season as a whole, but I just thought I’d make a quick note of some of the more interesting parallels and ponder whether Jack is really so much better than Tony.

jacktony

Clothes colour coded for your convenience... white=good, black=bad....

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Non-Review Review: Batman Returns

I adore Batman Returns. It tends to be a rather polarising film, and certainly a polarising Batman adaptation. It was famously too dark and too weird for mainstream audiences, with too much creepy and freaky stuff serving to distress the parents of children who gobbled up Batman-themed Happy Meals. I think it holds up the best of the four Burton and Schumacher Batman films, because it finds a way to balance Burton’s unique approach and style with that of the Caped Crusader. While Burton’s Batman occasionally struggled to balance the director’s vision with a relatively conventional plot (to the point where Vicki Vale stuck out like a sore thumb, and the movie wasn’t the most coherently plotted of films), here there’s a much greater sense of balance at play, and a feeling that Burton isn’t compromising, and yet is working with the characters.

Shine a light…

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The Starman Omnibus, Vol. 3

What makes a hero? Is it a cosmic rod and a kick-ass pair of glare-reducing goggles? Is it being a “grim avenger full of hate for the bad” (one of Robinson’s more subtle jabs at Batman during this run)? Or is it simply “doing what’s right because it is”? Is it the honest desire to make the world a better place with “no vengeful motivation” or “nothing ulterior”? We may be getting ahead of ourselves here, but James Robinson really digs into what constitutes a ‘true’ hero here, looking at the classic simplistic conception of the superhero, rejecting the violence of the anti-hero or the deconstruction which has crept into comics over the past few years (mostly in lieu of character development or to seem darker and edgier). Is that what a hero is?

I don’t know, but I find myself agreeing with Batman. No matter how you cut it, Jack Knight is a hero.

A knight in shining armour...

A Knight in shining armour...

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